Eddie excels with 5th Dan Black Belt grade
Iain Abernethy, World Combat Association (centre), with Eddie Doyle, 5th Dan, and Daniel Dubaj, 2nd Dan, both of Yotoshinkai Castlebar,
Yotoshinkai Karate Club, Castlebar reached a significant milestone last weekend when club instructor Eddie Doyle successfully graded for his 5th Dan Black Belt. Eddie is the first club member to grade to 5th Dan in the organisation. Club member Daniel Dubaj also successfully graded to 2nd Dan.
The grading was conducted by internationally recognised Sensei, Iain Abernethy, 8th Dan, who was in Castlebar for the weekend to teach a karate self-defence training course.
The Castlebar-based Karate Club has been in existence for over 30 years and trains on Mondays and Thursdays with an additional class on Sundays for more advanced grades.
Monday’s class takes place in Newport and Thursday’s class is at An Sportlan in Castlebar.
Yotoshinkai is Japanese for ‘swaying ash’, representative of our native Irish tree, and club training focuses on self-protection driven by both Goju Ryu and Shotokan styles, with contact, pad work, drills and Kata applications. Yotoshinkai also runs a number of special seminars through the year with recognised guest instructors who add to the layers of understanding of a very specialised art. New members are always welcome with encouragement for older members to join and learn self-defence skills.

